Romantically Inclined
by AudeTheThird
Summary: The romantically inclined receptionist did die; but it's not how you think. A little something written to fill the gap now that I don't have the show this week. Hannibal centric.


**Romantically inclined.**

* * *

Let it never be said that Dr. Hannibal Lecter was not a man of opportunity. The receptionist was small, but promised him hard work and compete dedication with all the intense flourishes of a desperate truth well told. He did have reservations, of course, starting with the dandruff at her roots and ending at her cheap leather shoes.

Needless to say, her eagerness was pronounced. But she stood steady and had a neat air about her clean and sensible clothes, and he couldn't fault her manners.

"Well," he said, offering his hand. "Miss Finch, I would be happy to give you a job here."

"Thank you very much, Dr. Lecter." and she was so very gracious about the whole thing, so very mature and calm, but her sweating palm betrayed her anxiety.

* * *

The day after he first paid her she came into his office smelling amazing. The perfume she had chosen complimented her bright smile and the flavor of her skin. Her mousey hair had been meticulously smoothed into clean, loose curls that became her heart shaped face - she wore a little peach coloured rouge for colour in her otherwise pale skin.

After two months he discovered she was more helpful than he had originally expected, having worked in much larger offices than his, her filing and organizational skills were amazing. She was nice enough that his nervous patients grew comfortable in her waiting room; she had learned his patterns, when he liked his tea, how he prefered his coffee, all in a matter of days. She baked on Wednesday nights for her brothers' school canteen, and he would always get a cup cake or a flaky fresh bread roll on Thursday morning.

It wasn't a delicacy, but they were tasty, and he allowed the indulgence in the name of propriety. (And being pampered was nice too.)

They didn't often speak - outside of pleasantries, missed phone calls and compliments of her pastries and of his ties. She was charming but a little on the shy side, and she simply wasn't his brand of interesting. He thought her efficient, naive with her youth and truly kind of heart, but she was like a computer to him. A tool, a part of his carefully constructed facade, to be kept at work in a neat box of inedible, boring things.

And for once, he had been very wrong.

* * *

It so happened, one day, she came into his office after knocking and waiting for him to call her admittance. It was a full ten minutes before nine on thursday, and while she had been good at keeping her timetable, she was never so eager in the mornings. She was visibly flustered and shaking badly as she placed his tea and weekly home made cupcake down, pausing to brace the edge of his desk for a long second, murmuring some kind of greeting.

He scented blood.

"Emile?"

"Yes, Dr. Lecter?"

"Are you alright?"

"Yes, Dr. Lecter."

She tried to walk away and promptly smashed her hip into his desk.

"Ow." was all she said, but her expression voiced a much greater pain.

He appraised the side of her grimacing face.

"Are you quite sure you're alright?"

"Sure, sure. Sorry, I'm clumsy."

She was not, and hadn't ever been in the months he'd known her, but he hummed a low agreement to appease her. She held her hip and lifted her head, inflating in her mild pride. He waited calmly until she had dizzily made her way to the door before saying her name again.

"Emile."

"Yes, Dr. Lecter?"

"You have blood on your shirt." Not a lie, but an understatement. It dripped down from a thick matting of wet hair on the back of her head, pooled at her collar, sticking the fabric to her spine.

She lifted a hand, patting the back of her skull with dumb fingers. She winced, looked at her fingers; repeated the action before any recognition dawned on her face.

"Oh." she said, and blinked at the crimson puddle in her palm. He could see every crack and crevice in her hand, as detailed by the blood. "I... Tripped."

"That's quite a trip." he said, and stood, buttoning his jacket in the hope of protecting his shirt. "Perhaps you should take a seat."

"Maybe. Sorry. I'm- sorry." she fell fluidly into a chair and held her skull. "Oh, there's blood everywhere. I'm getting - blood - everywhere. You'll never get this out if I - oh, no-" she tried to stand, her priorities a little misplaced but appreciated none the less.

"Don't panic." was his advice. "Sit down."

"But the couch..." there was a certain tilt to her body that denoted her nausea. He would really rather not clean up vomit on his bright Thursday morning. He had so looked forward to his cup cake.

"I know a thing or two about getting blood out of fabric." he assured her, and went about unravelling a length of on-hand gauze - he never knew when he'd be needing to stem the flow of blood. "Hold still, please."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't apologise to me." he said lightly, and dabbed the wound enough to clearly identify it needed stitches, no more than seven, at worst. "Can you have someone pick you up?"

She made a very sad noise, and put her hand over her mouth, as if to catch it. She swayed, circling slowly, as though he'd spun her around and around and made her sit.

"No." she whispered. "I'll walk. S'not far. I'll ca'cha bus."

"Allow me." he offered because - she really was quite a good assistant. Also, there were a plethora of suspicious bruises on her wrists, on her throat, and he wanted to take full advantage of her mild concussion to prod about those. He thought it best not to dwell on the fact that she had also smeared a good handful of blood on the better part of her face, and she looked... tasty. "We have nothing planned for an hour or two. Give me your arm."

She obediently lifted her elbow to his hand, and he eased her into standing with the other hand braced on the small of her spine. She leaned into his hold, but managed to keep her own feet under her of her own volition. He took a moment to swipe a towel from the linen press and lock the door behind them, then made her hold the fabric to her skull and buckled her in his car.

She did her very best not to get blood on the interior of his vehicle. It was leather for a reason, but the effort of cleaning it would be an effort wasted when he couldn't even reap the benefits of the body that had bled.

"You must keep consciousness." he told her as he backed out of his driveway, an arm over the back of her head rest. She had leaned forward, both hands pressing the towel into her skull. "Tell me what happened."

"I tripped." it was of course, a well rehashed lie. They both knew it. She expected him not to pry.

"That's an interesting way to fall. Onto the back of your head."

"I was opening the door for someone and my hands were full. I used my - uh, backside... I fell backward."

"And what caused this 'trip'?"

"My heel got caught..."

"It has split with _quite_ a bit of force behind it."

"I was up some stairs."

"Hm." she seemed to have qued up a series of answers for each flaw he found in her story. He wasn't sure why, but the easy way in which she lied was intriguing. "How many stairs?"

"About five." she even knew enough about lying not to over-lie. Interesting. "I tripped, Dr. Lecter."

"I'm just trying to keep you conscious." he said, and she hummed, because one liar to another, it was a bad one, especially based on the fact that he fell decidedly quiet after that.

"It is consistent with a flat surface trauma. I wouldn't worry about it. It's clean and she's lost a bit of blood, but she's only mildly concussed. We'll have to keep her over-night but it could've been much worse." the doctor appraised him, her glasses flashed, badly disguising her interest. "She was lucky to have you on hand."

"Thank you."

"Are you her partner?"

"No."

She had the audacity to smile. He found her repugnant.

"Father?"

Then she insulted him.

"Employer."

"Could be the same thing."

How could any creature be so dull?

"No."

"So you're her boss?"

"Yes."

"Lucky girl."

He had the vivid image of ripping into her tongue with his teeth. The smile he then presented her with was entirely true; she returned it, blushing.

There was something green lodged in her teeth.

"You can see her now, if you like."

"Thank you, Dr...?"

"Page. Allison Page."

"Thank you, Dr. Page." he committed the name to memory, then went to attend the young receptionist, who was mildly high on pain medication.

"Oh, you're going to be late for your appointment." she lamented upon seeing him. She writhed, apparently trying to sit. "You should've been long gone by now..."

"Emile, I have another hour and a half before my next appointment. You were rushed through the E.R. The doctors had you glued together in a number of minutes." he stood at her bedside, wearing a small, carefully constructed smile. "How do you feel?"

"Floaty." she inspected the IV hanging out of her arm. "Are they going to release me soon?"

"Saturday at the earliest. The location of the injury gives cause for worry. They thought you may have fractured your skull - the x-ray didn't show that, of course, but there may be a delay fracture. The skull may crack up to 48 hours after impact. They will want to observe."

"I am so sorry."

"It was an accident."

The look that flashed over her drug glazed eyes made him take pause. She turned her face away, and he inspected the glued injury for himself.

"You can come to me, if you're in trouble. I am a doctor."

"There's no trouble, Dr. Lecter. But thank you for everything." she turned her face back to him, blinking owlishly. "Your tie is dancing."

"That would be the morphine."

"It's very distracting."

"I can imagine it would be." The tie of choice today was a curly pattern - silver on navy - that look to him like thorns, when she once commented it looked like waves. He said his goodbyes and left her staring wildly at the pattern on the chair beside her bed, a small smile on her mouth.

She, if possible, became more reserved.

* * *

He didn't see her for weeks after that. He knew she was still working because cups of tea and his weekly pastry appear on his desk when he left the office - she put his calls through and occasionally buzzed him with questions or information.

But physically, she was a ghost. When he came out to welcome people in she had always _just_ left the desk with a stack of papers on her hip or on a trip to the bathroom.

The patients attracted to females were interested in her, some even approached him and asked if he knew much about her dating history or to what gender she prefered. He didn't know, wasn't even inclined to know her sexual preference, but he told them it'd be unprofessional of him to disclose the information and subtly warded them away.

It was one rainy Wednesday afternoon he found her under her desk.

He'd walked out and she was gone, as had been her M.O. Then he'd closed the door and waited a few seconds, to which she reappeared. She looked as though she'd been holding her breath - then he saw the bruising on her neck; the stiff way she unfurled her spine and held her right arm close to her chest. She eased into her chair with half lidded eyes and a grateful exhale, then she saw him and her entire body jolted out of the chair. She scrambled for an excuse to have been in hiding but found none.

"I didn't mean to frighten you." he really didn't. "I thought you may have been avoiding me."

"I-... dropped a pen..." it was a heinously bad lie. He ignored it as though she hadn't spoken.

"I am concerned about you, Emile."

"I'm fine." she even managed to smile for him, drawing his steady gaze to the dark circles that bracketed her eyes. One looked more like bruising than sleep deprivation, though a heavy layer of concealer hid the fact. "Can I help you, Dr. Lecter?"

"No, thank you." he gave her neat, pressed clothes a short once over, noting only her physical body seemed damaged, worn down. He made a trivial comment about the weather and she heartily agreed, taking her seat with a wince that he did not leave unnoticed.

Later that day, she brought him coffee, and didn't even lack a smile.

* * *

Then it happened; he was waiting for his next client and his intercom went off. He could hear a man's threatening voice, curse words falling thick and fast, and quick breaths from the little assistant.

"If you leave now, I won't m-make a scene."

"You won't any way."

"Please go."

There was the familiar sound of skin hitting skin - the dull thunk of a skull being knocked back into a wall. When he wrenched open the door, she was calmly taking her seat and smoothing her hands over her skirt with steady hands. She smiled at him, looking perfectly collected, but tired.

"Dr. Lecter?"

He realized she didn't know he had heard, that the call had not been an S.O.S so much as an accident. He reached over the desk and hung up the intercom with a pointed look aimed at her face. She stared at it for a long second, and he could see the gears turning behind her eyes; the way the smile faded, ever so slightly. Her eyes traveled up his arm to his face, but still she betrayed nothing, and he wondered at how well she had him fooled in the beginning.

"Can I help you, Dr.?"

"I think the question is, can I help you, Emile?"

Her smile was kind, genuine.

"I can handle it. Thank you."

"What is it you are handling, exactly?"

She plastered on a less tolerant smile and patted the stack of paper work beside the phone. He inspected her eyes - she seemed fine - but there was a smear of blood on his wall and her sleeve had been drawn over her fist, tucked tightly into her hand, as though she'd just attempted to clean it when he'd appeared.

"I see." he said, and returned to his office quietly.

* * *

Her sleeves kept the long length, even as it got warmer. It's almost like a game; she hid bruises and her limp and swollen face but she no longer avoided him like the plague.

He stopped asking, and that was the precise moment when she scheduled herself an appointment, the last one of the day. It was a Thursday. He got treated to a dollop of cream and chocolate cannoli for brunch, made specifically for him, seeing as he thought young children wouldn't quite appreciate Italian desserts for canteen snacks.

She greeted him easily. It was quite nice, very casual. She undid the silky scarf at her throat and eased out of her heels, pulling on a pair of old ugly flats. Under her button up work blouse, a t-shirt she revealed by undoing the first top buttons. She eased into the seat, rested her head in her hands, and sighed heavily.

"So, you've deducted there's something wrong in my life of the physically violent nature."

"I have."

"It's my stalker." she raised tired eyes to him. "I have never dated him, but he has this twisted idea of us. It's been going on now for two and a half years."

"Two and a half years is a long time to a twenty two year old."

"I feel ancient." she confessed, and smiled.

"How did it begin?"

"Quietly." she said, rubbing her temples. "I didn't know he existed. Then I went on this date with this guy and he flew up to me, started shoving me around, calling me every name under the sun. I didn't even know his name. But my date was mortified, though the was 'the other man' and left; the rest of the cafe kept giving me the most horrible looks." she swallowed, uneasy.

"Then he started driving my brothers to and from school... said he was my friend and I'd set him up. I nearly tore his head off after that, had to drive them myself. My mother told me that she'd met my boyfriend at work, that it was some kind of serendipity. She's a travel agent, and he'd come to her with these grand ideas for a honeymoon trip to Paris and mentioned my name. She invited him for dinner, but I wouldn't let him in the house. She didn't believe what I said he had done until he shoved me aside and stormed in. She called the cops but he was gone before they even picked up."

"And you moved states to avoid him?"

"Yes. not far - I'm still only an hour and a half away. Moved my brothers from their school, too. I have to drop off the things I bake at one of the canteen lady's houses so I don't give them away. I got in touch with a friend who's handy with computers and learned that he's a flight risk. So my next move is to the United Kingdom."

"Seems a long way to run."

"He is a waste of time and space and I wanted to go any way. This is incentive. But he's progressed to violence in recent times... He used to shove me a lot, he locked me in his boot once, but he seems to have a taste for blood now."

"And you've never told the police?"

"Here's the thing about my sociopath." she leaned elbows to knees, and her spine popped audibly. He made a mental note of her terminology "He _is_ the police. High ranking, from what I understand. He takes no blame. He's stalking me and he's abusing me but it's my fault."

"Naturally." he paused. "But now he's found you here?"

"Yes. You're not- in any danger, he's not game enough to challenge men. Especially not because you're rather wealthy. He's got a complex about affluent men."

He couldn't be sure if that was a backhanded compliment worked in for his pleasure or not. He let it slide without comment.

"Does he often abuse you?"

"Physically?"

"Over all."

"He's probably outside, waiting for me now. He will think we are up to no good. That, you and I..." she flushed. It was somewhat adorable on the otherwise unflappable creature. "Like the Dr. who treated me in hospital. She seemed to think we were... An item."

He raised his brows.

"You know he will think badly of this situation," he said slowly. "Yet you made an appointment at this time?"

"Oh, I don't make his life easy." she held her ribcage, as if the two acts were on par.

"Will he attack you, tonight, for this?"

"I've got my mace handy."

She'd prepared for it; even planned it in advance.

"You said he only used to shove you - but had recently developed a taste for blood. Why?"

"He shoved me and I fell down those stairs." she motioned to the back of her head. "I woke up in the front seat of his car. He'd put me in and was staring at his hands, the blood on them. I'm fairly certain he was going to taste it, before I slammed the door open into his hip and got enough attention that he drove away."

"I see." he was still stuck on the fact that she had knowingly set up a situation where she may have to employ a mace can as defence. "Do you have a taste for his blood now, Emile?"

She did not smile, as he had grown accustomed to, but looked at him with a level stare, a calm air encircling her like a comforting blanket.

"Wouldn't you?" she asked with a tip of her head.

It was not the first time he thought he'd underestimated her.

They chatted a while longer, an easy, casual air about stalkers and information she had collected about them from a few papers she'd gathered on the subject. He offered his professional opinion - inform a police agency he wasn't in the pocket of and get help before things progressed. She was a helpful receptionist and he didn't want to lose the efficiency.

He waited by the door when her time was up and she was due to leave. She held her head high and smiled her pretty, warm smile, assuring him she had probably developed a paranoia and she'd be fine.

He was not so optimistic.

Her car started and peeled away; then the there was a squeal and the horn blared. Hannibal pulled open the door to see that a man had thrown himself into her smashed drivers' side window - swinging a hammer he'd just broken the glass with.

He was repeatedly bashing her head into the wheel, so much that the airbags deployed. His arms were wedged in the car, against her face and chest - he started screaming profanities at her with made the Hannibal's ears ring. There was a feminine cry from inside the car, then it burned rubber in reverse - he was dragged with her, feet scrambling for purchase on the ground.

When she hit the curb she halted - and then squealed forward again, dragging him off his feet. He got arm arm loose as the airbags deflated, minus a hammer, slamming his palm down into the vehicle.

He was let go - a chunk of bloody meat flung off on to the asphalt. He hit and bounced on the ground, clutching his bloody forearm, and backed into his own car, started it up and flew away.

She stumbled out after him, a hammer in one hand, her lower face covered in blood and gore. As he drove past she smashed his windscreen with the hammer and he clipped her with the wing mirror, making her spin and hit the asphalt, the hammer flung out of her hand.

* * *

It was the second drive Hannibal had taken her to hospital. Her forearm had a fracture and she was concussed, one of her fingers had been snapped back, disjointed. She didn't get the chance to articulate a lie so Hannibal told them the truth, encouraging the idea that her earlier trip to hospital may have been caused by the same man.

He then waited by her bedside, flicking through e-mails on his phone, until she stirred.

"You poked a sleeping dragon." he said for a conversation starter.

"I got bitten. Yes. I'm aware." she eased up into sitting, wincing. She looked at her fingers, one of which was bandaged and crooked. "But I bit back."

"I saw." he had studied the chunk of forearm beside them, when he went to collect her from the floor. It was no love bite, but a mouthful - speaking from experience, she'd shaken her head like a rabid dog and torn off a long strip of meat. "I did not mention that to anyone, however."

"Thank you. Really." she was dosed up on something. Vaguely, he heard a doctor outside of her room, talking in a low, hurried tone. "For everything."

"I've done nothing. This was, as you're quite aware, of your own design."

She beamed at him, positively glowing.

The door opened and what had to be her mother rushed in, flanked by a young boy on either side. The twins were teary eyed and pale faced - barely sparing him a glance. The mother cuddled her daughter for a long minute, then thanked him too.

He left as Dr. Page walked in the room, giving him what he deduced was her version of a saucy wink.

It wasn't long after that she was brutally murdered. Emile had forged some kind of connection to him after the second trip to the hospital - he felt she sensed how he was impressed when she had provoked the attack to wound him back. It wasn't in her nature to be violent, but it was intriguing with how she had suffered for months, and how she turned the tables about so she was the biting dragon, and he, the knight out of his league.

Hannibal didn't figure out what part he played.

* * *

For a few months after - when she had been lulled into a false sense of security - the policeman attacked again.

There was nothing Hannibal could do, when he walked into his office on a warm afternoon to find the broken receptionist gasping out last breaths on his couch. Already, her liver was shutting down - probably because there was a bullet in there somewhere - and her breathing was too laboured for him to believe she'd make it to the nearest hospital. In shock, passing in and out of consciousness, with bullet holes in strategic places on her small body.

He knelt beside her, taking a hand that was dislocated, swollen, and missing fingernails.

"I imagine he thought that this would wound me."

"Doc-tor-" her eyes were wide, and he turned just in time to avoid being shot in the back of the skull. The bullet hit Emile and the force of it made her head crack to the other side. By the time Hannibal had disarmed the cop - by literally pulling his arm out of the socket - Emile was quite dead.

The police officer had never been identified officially, having hidden his tracks too well. He would not, however, get away with it any longer. He was not in any good shape, and he stood to a grand six foot five.

There was plenty of meat on his bones.

* * *

Emile had booked her ticket and changed her money over for her trip to the United Kingdom, and it made Hannibal's job to forge her abrupt departure much easier. All he had to do was tell her mother that she'd been by to resign and hug him goodbye.

She had been 'missing' for little over a month when she was deemed a missing person.

By then, any connection to Hannibal was quite forgotten, and the next and last person to ever enquire about her was Jack Crawford.


End file.
